There's a well-worn joke that if you call a copy editor anal-retentive, he'll look that up to see if it's hyphenated. It is, I am, and it's my job. Many people can give dignified one-word answers to ...

There’s no denying that commas are helpful little flecks of punctuation. They allow us to separate written clauses and do good work when especially numerous or complicated groups of things exist in a ...

I am, unapologetically, an over-user of commas. Case in point: I could have written the previous sentence as, "I am an unapologetic over-user of commas," but opted not to. I wished to emphasize just ...

Punctuation. It accompanies our written form of language. It helps us to better understand things when we read them. Let's take this phrase as an example. Without punctuation it is a dangerous ...

When you reach the end of a sentence, you need a period, question mark, or exclamation point. Phrases or subordinate clauses standing alone are missing a subject or a verb or are stated in such a way ...

When you are writing, inverted commas or speech marks go before and after direct speech, surrounding what was said. Inverted commas make it clear when someone is speaking by sitting high up above the ...